Last Indian Raid Museum

Last Indian Raid Museum

It was September 1878, and the Northern Cheyenne Indians were desperate. Forced from their homelands onto a reservation in Oklahoma with 2,500 other Indians from different tribes, many of whom were sworn enemies, the tribe found itself starving and wreaked by disease. Forcibly removed from their traditional territory, the Great White Father in faraway Washington had promised them that their new land was full of game and that they would be provided with abundant rations and medical care. Instead they were given only two days’ rations a week, and one doctor with no medicine was assigned to the reservation. White man’s diseases like measles, for which the Indians had no immunity, were killing their people every day.

All through the long, sweltering summer their pleas for help had been ignored. Promises were never kept, and as fall approached, the remaining members of the tribe realized that to stay in Oklahoma meant certain death. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

Under a chief known as Dull Knife, 300 Northern Cheyenne left the reservation and headed north to their homeland. The hundred or so warriors and their wives and children felt it was better to die fighting for the land they had lived on for centuries than to die on the white man’s reservation.

Soon after they broke out of the reservation, the Indians were attacked by soldiers under the Army’s Colonel Lewis. In the brief but bloody skirmish that followed Colonel Lewis was killed and the troops pulled back.

Continuing northward on their trek, raiding small farms and settlements as they went, on the 30^th of September they arrived on the banks of Sappa Creek, within a few miles of the small settlement of Oberlin, Kansas. This place held bitter memories for the Northern Cheyenne , for it was here in April, 1875, that buffalo hunters slaughtered 27 members of the tribe in an unprovoked attack. Not only men, but women and children fell under the hunters’ guns and knives. Now it was time for revenge.

The Indians spread out along the creek for ten miles or so, attacking targets of opportunity. Farmers working in their fields or hauling supplies from town were the first to fall. A thirteen year old boy out tending cattle watched in horror as the Indians shot two neighbors to death, and fled back home to warn his family. At first the settlers along Sappa Creek were not alarmed by reports of Indian activity. They had heard rumors of raids for so long that nobody really believed it could actually happen. But it was happening.

After killing several men and boys and capturing two schoolgirls, the Indians appeared at one small farm and were driven off by gunfire, losing one brave. They abandoned their two captive girls when they retreated. Moving farther along the creek, the raiders killed several more settlers. Several people from the Bridal farm ran into a stand of trees to hide just before the Indians arrived.

Among the group was an infant girl named Pearl , who began to cry. One of the men was forced to choke the baby into silence to avoid detection and certain death for all at the hands of the raiding party. At the Laing farm, after killing the family’s two teenaged sons, the Indians piled all the furniture and bedding in the center of the floor and set it on fire. They stripped the two young Laing girls and prepared to throw them into the blaze, but Mrs. Laing begged Chief Dull Knife to spare her remaining children. After she gave him all of the money she had, the chief pushed the girls at her and told her to go. Mrs. Laing wrapped her daughters in her petticoats and fled to a nearby farm, only to learn that her husband had been killed earlier in the day when the atrocities began.

By the time it ended, nineteen settlers had been killed by the raiders. Their bloodlust satisfied, the Indians continued north into Nebraska , where they were finally captured after a battle that left several from the tribe dead. As a result of the events that led up to and included the raids near Oberlin, a new treaty was reached and the Northern Cheyenne were sent to a reservation in eastern Montana . The massacres along Sappa Creek were the last Indian raid to take place on Kansas soil.

Today Oberlin , Kansas is a peaceful town that belies the terrible violence that happened here so long ago. The Last Indian Raid Museum , located at 258 S. Penn Street in Oberlin, has displays and a video about the 1878 raid. Included are arrowheads, written recollections of the raid by people who lived here at the time, and even a bullet that killed an Indian at one of the farms they raided along Sappa Creek. Also included in the Indian display are fishhooks, grinding stones and pipes used by the local Indians.

In addition to the exhibit on the Indian raid, the museum is a treasure trove of pioneer life on the Kansas prairie. Several period rooms contain items from early-day Kansas , including a Music Room, with an 1860s Oriental Gem grand piano, Edison phonograph, player piano and a wind up Victrola. The Child’s Room includes old toys, a Yo-Yo quilt, a handmade cradle, and wicker high chair. One room is set up as a General Store, with all of the items a Kansas pioneer family might need on a trip to town.

Behind the main museum building, which is filled with displays relating to the settlement of the area, are several buildings which have been restored and moved to the museum complex. Duke’s Grocery, originally located on Commercial Street in Oberlin, makes you think of buying penny candy and ice cream bars as a child, long before the days of supermarkets.

An 1885 railroad depot brings to mind the days before interstate highways and the internal combustion engine, when most travel of any distance was by rail. The handsome brick building housing Paul’s Oil Company was originally a Phillips 66 Service Station that opened in Oberlin in early 1934.

Built in 1922, the Country School is complete with desks, early textbooks and old class photographs and annuals. The Annex Building houses several interesting displays, including an old barber shop, a German Lutheran Church, a millinery, and exhibits honoring area veterans from the Civil War to Desert Storm.

Next door are the original Oberlin jail, built in 1886, a country doctor’s office, and dentists’ office, complete with foot pedaled drill. The livery contains old wagons and tack, and a blacksmith’s shop. The print shop looks like every small town newspaper from a few decades ago. Here are an old Linotype, which was used to set type long before anyone ever dreamed of computers, and a vintage letterpress. As I sit at my desk composing this edition of the Gypsy Journal and laying it out on my computer’s screen, I appreciate the work involved by my predecessors in the newspaper business. I can still run a Linotype, but it was a disappearing art even as I was learning it.

We enjoy small town museums, and the Last Indian Raid Museum is one of the best we’ve come across in our travels. Located at the junction of U.S. Highways 36 and 83 in northwestern Kansas , Oberlin is a friendly little town that looks like it is stuck in a 1950s time warp, and that is not an entirely bad thing. The town and museum are well worth a visit.

The victims of the Last Indian Raid are buried in the Oberlin Cemetery, and in 1911 a striking monument was erected in the cemetery in honor of those lost in the massacre. The Last Indian Raid Museum is open April 1^st through November 30^th. Call 785-475-2712 for hours and further information.